


but i come back to the water

by angelsinflight



Series: sorikai endgame, actually. [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Anxiety, Coming Out, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Growing Up, M/M, Multi, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rating May Change, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-02-26 10:17:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18715021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelsinflight/pseuds/angelsinflight
Summary: Riku knows, very early, that he’s a boy. He knows it with the same certainty that he knows that the only coconuts worth knocking off the trees are the green ones, that the calmest looking part of the shoreline can be the most dangerous, that there issomethingbehind the door in the Secret Place, calling for him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is: the trans!Riku fic I have wanted to write for nearly four years. 
> 
> Title comes from Moana's 'How Far I'll Go' because, wow, that sure is a Riku song. 
> 
> Rather than a larger narrative, I plan on primarily using short little snapshots. I don't think all of the updates are going to be chronological, but we'll see. I'm just kind of playing it by ear with this one. Second chapter is probably gonna be mostly KHI angst and a good chunk of it has already been written. 
> 
> The series as a whole has explicit parts, but this piece of it will remain rated T.

☆ ☆ ☆

Riku knows, very early, that he’s a boy. He knows it with the same certainty that he knows that the only coconuts worth knocking off the trees are the green ones, that the calmest looking part of the shoreline can be the most dangerous, that there is _something_ behind the door in the Secret Place, calling for him.

His parents don’t seem to know it, though. That’s weird. They know that Sora is a boy and that Kairi is a girl, but they somehow got it mixed up with him. He wonders if it’ll hurt their feelings when he decides it’s time to correct them.  

He’s already told Sora and Kairi, who adjusted even more quickly than he expected. It makes him happy, that his friends listen to him, that they see how important it is.

☆ ☆ ☆

He’s belly-down on the beach, close enough to the water that the sand is wet enough to trace pictures with a piece of driftwood. When he grows up, he wants to be just like that one boy who visited, the one here on the play island. He was really tall, and he sounded really cool, and he had a really neat… Sword? Key? Sword-key? He’s tried to draw it, but can’t quite get it to look right.

 _Keyblade_ , something whispers behind him. He whips around to catch whoever it is, but he’s alone. That happens sometimes. He’s starting to think the play island is haunted, but he can’t be scared of ghosts because Sora and Kairi are scared of ghosts and he’s supposed to protect them from the things that scare them.

“I’m not afraid of you, ghost,” he calls out, fists clenched, but his voice feels very small. There’s wind in the palm trees, shaking the leaves. He thinks it sounds a little like laughter, and it makes him feel uneasy. The sun is high at the top of the sky, so there shouldn’t be any shadows creeping along the beach, but he can feel them in the corners of his vision. Sora and Kairi have taken refuge from the early afternoon heat in the Secret Place, and he’s getting creeped out enough out here that he thinks he should go join them in there.

☆ ☆ ☆

Michi is not particularly close to either of Sora’s mothers, though she does remember them both from her schoolgirl days. She sits with one of them, Aiko, slowly nursing a cup of tea while she tries to digest the news her child has given her. She’s struggling with it, if she’s honest with herself.

“Maybe it’s harder when it’s somebody you know. I mean, your husband is now —” she trails off, awkwardly. The Jun and Aiko she remembers were typical high school sweethearts, boyfriend and girlfriend.

Aiko _glows_ , “My wife!! Isn’t that great?”

Well, Michi certainly knows which mother Sora gets his enthusiasm from.

“And my daughter is now —” she doesn’t think she’s ready to say it yet, wants Aiko to say it for her, feels like maybe it will seem more real in someone else’s mouth.

“You always had a son. You just didn’t know it yet. That’s what makes it easier for me to understand, at least,” it sounds so _simple_ , put that way.

It helps, actually.

“But, I mean, Riku doesn’t want to stop taking ballet classes, doesn’t want to get a hair cut. Aren’t those the sort of things I should be expecting from… him?” different pronouns are still weird in her mouth, though she knows it gets easier with time.

“As soon as we start trying to box up things-that-boys-do and things-that-girls-do, we start losing sight of the thing-people-do best: we love each other, Michi. You just have to love him,” she is so gentle, but Michi knows there is fire hiding in her, quick to defend her family. She loves Riku like her very own, just as Michi herself had taken to Sora, so she supposes she can understand.

She just wants her child to have a good life. She and Haru have worked hard to provide that. This is an obstacle she doesn’t know how to tackle. She doesn’t know how to make the world safe enough for this.

“But Riku is _seven_ ,” she insists, as if that means something in all this.

It would be easier, she thinks, if it were Sora. His parents already have so much experience with this, they know what to do. She just feels lost.

“You know there’s no right answer to that. If they’re children, then people say they’re too young to know any better. If they’re adults, then people ask what took them so long to come out,” Michi hates that Aiko is so good at this, knows it comes from years of having to validate her wife to people who didn’t understand.

“Maybe I’m having a hard time because I just wasn’t expecting this. I just thought I had a tomboy,” she sighs, pushing her hair out of her face and leaning back in the chair. Aiko just hums in response, knowingly. Too knowingly.

“You knew, didn’t you?” she asks, eyes narrowed. Aiko doesn’t respond for a long moment.  

“Sora knew,” she confirms, “He slipped up sometimes, when talking to me. It wasn’t my place to say anything.”

It bothers her, more than a little, that Riku told his friends before he told his own parents. She can’t change anything about that, though. What she can do is ask for advice on how to raise her son. 

☆ ☆ ☆

It’s times like this where Riku wishes he was in the same grade as Sora and Kairi.

He’s born the year before, so he always puffs out his chest and says that he’s a year older, but everyone knows his birthday is actually only three months before Sora’s, six months before Kairi’s.

He’s wearing the boys’ uniform now, not the skirt he had to wear in first grade. Just that on its own makes him feel a lot better, but he’s still nervous about being reintroduced to everyone on the first day of school. As a boy.

At recess, some of his classmates come up and ask him questions about it. Some of them he doesn’t have the answers to. Some of them he just plain doesn’t _want_ to answer. When did everybody get so nosy?

Before he left for school that morning, his dad put both his hands on his shoulders and told Riku to be a good boy, and to show him that he can be brave. He just wants so desperately to prove himself.

☆ ☆ ☆

The child Chiyo has taken into her care, the one she is quickly starting to see as her own, tells her that she is getting married. Destiny Islands are certainly not known for having child brides, so she laughs and asks Kairi what she means.

“I mean, when we’re older, the three of us are going to get married. Me and Sora and Riku,” Kairi says between bites of mango.

“Oh, bunny, marriage is between two people,” Chiyo says before she thinks to catch herself. She shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t make her think she has to choose between her two best friends.

Kairi is quiet for a while, after that, kicking her legs back and forth in the chair. She looks contemplative, more so than the average six-year-old should look. Not for the first time, Chiyo wonders what terrible thing happened to send her here.  

“Well, if that’s the case, then I guess I’ll marry Sora,” she says, with a confident nod. Chiyo starts to say something, to reassure her that she doesn’t have to make that decision right now, but Kairi interrupts her.

“And then I’ll divorce him the next week and I’ll marry Riku.”

That’s — that’s certainly one solution, she supposes.

“And… and then what, dear?” she asks, curious. Quite the problem solver she has on her hands. Kairi could turn politics into a family business at this rate.

“And then I’ll divorce Riku and marry Sora again, and I’ll just keep doing that, I guess,” she says with a shrug. She makes it sound like the easiest thing in the world.

Chiyo makes a mental note to ask the council about group marriage laws at the next meeting. It’s foolish to think so far in advanced, but she never, ever, wants to have to tell Kairi that she can’t do something.

☆ ☆ ☆

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Just because I am interpreting Riku as a binary trans guy with dysphoria who knew he was trans at a very young age does not mean this is supposed to represent some universal trans experience – there are as many ways to be trans as there are trans people, and I do not wish to invalidate anyone. I am cis, but I come from the perspective of a very messy dyke with body dysmorphia and a complicated relationship with gender, so this fic is also some very personal stuff I’m exploring, but I will never claim to be able to understand what it’s like to be trans. I have done a lot of research for this fic but I know it’s not perfect, and I accept any criticism from people in the community, specifically trans men, who think I’ve fucked this up in any way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doesn’t everyone else feel stuck here, like something is constantly breathing down their necks? Why is it that he seems to be the only one who’s trapped?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This probably isn't going to be the only KHI chapter, considering where I leave it, but I wanted to get these pieces out since they were finished. I might be laying that angsty Rikai content pretty thick right now, but that's probably only because a lot of the later stuff I've written is pretty Soriku-heavy and I'm trying to balance it out. Still all Sorikai in the end, folks. We'll get them there.

☆ ☆ ☆

Doesn’t everyone else feel stuck here, like something is constantly breathing down their necks? Why is it that he seems to be the only one who’s trapped?

There’s nothing _wrong_ with the islands — but the three of them exhausted new places to explore when they were still in elementary school, and he thinks he knows every single person who lives here by name, and there’s an itch under his skin that feels like it’s pull-push-pulling him away from here.

The horizon has never looked more inviting.

He worries, sometimes, that those older kids who visited were just a figment of his imagination. Sora doesn’t seem to remember them as well as he does. Kairi is tangible proof, though, that there’s more out there. She must have come from somewhere else. And, he thinks to himself, any place that made someone simultaneously as fierce and as sweet as Kairi is somewhere that he wants to see for himself.

It sounds childish, dangerous, impossible, even just voicing the idea, but they respond to it enthusiastically enough. A raft.

☆ ☆ ☆

One sports bra turns into two sports bras turns into Sora starting to win races more often because Riku gets winded easily. He asks his mom and gets the same old excuse every damn time.

“Oh, but I read that binding isn’t healthy, can’t you just wait to get surgery?”

He’s brushing fifteen, so that’s still _over three years away_. He’s not even allowed to start testosterone until he turns sixteen. Being stuck in this body is as stifling as being stuck on this island. They just don’t seem to get it.

He knows, the rational part of him (slowly being chipped away at by hormones and anxiety and wanderlust) knows that his parents accept him, that they love him the way he is. But it’s moments like these when he wonders if they’re waiting for a phase to finally fizzle out, for their long-lost daughter to come home.

There are other worlds out there, he knows it. Maybe there are ones out there where he’ll feel a little more comfortable in his own skin. Only one way to find out.

☆ ☆ ☆

He’s running around in the literal belly of the beast, dragging a wooden puppet behind him. He probably shouldn’t be wasting time letting Sora chase him, but he’s always been so much fun to tease, and it’s felt like forever.

“And, if I’m good, the Blue Fairy said she’d make me a real boy. Running away probably isn’t very good, though. Do you think we should go back? Hey, are you a real boy?”

Why won’t this thing ever _shut up?_

Riku feels something very ugly curl up around his heart. He doesn’t need some goddamn fairy to make him a boy, he _is_ a boy, fuck whatever weird bullshit the stupid puppet says. Besides, as if he would give Maleficent even more leverage over him. It’s not even worth a spare thought  — he has more important things to think about. Like Kairi.

He’s wasted enough time thinking about Sora today.

☆ ☆ ☆

He knows about what Maleficent did, in her old world. The others have told him enough that he’s pieced together the story. He wonders if that would work with Kairi, if kissing her would be enough to fix whatever’s wrong.

He has no doubts that she would kick his ass for trying that without asking first, though, so that’s probably out of the question unless he gets really desperate.

There must be some other way to prove he loves her, then, if that’s what it takes.

But then he thinks of Sora, who is supposed to love her, too, but right now clearly _doesn’t,_ and wonders if it’s supposed to be him waking her up and not Riku at all, if his love for both of them is wrong in some way.

He saw what Sora drew in the Secret Place the day before they left, after all. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be, and Sora abandoning them means that Kairi is never going to wake up, no matter what lengths Riku goes to.

He curls up around her vacant shell, lays his ear over her empty chest, and counts missing heart beats to fall asleep.

He is starting to think that maybe he made a mistake.

☆ ☆ ☆


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riku has done some terrible things, things he never expects forgiveness for, but he’s never —  
> He’s never _killed someone_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More very short snapshots, just to get us through the end of KHI and CoM. Days is actually going to cover a lot more, so I'm excited about that one.

☆ ☆ ☆

Okay, so he definitely made a mistake. He fucked up, big time. Fixing this is starting to look impossible.

There’s no use denying it now — he’s scared.

“Here it comes!” he does what he can to warn Sora, who barely manages dodges the blow. That’s about the extent of what Riku can do from where he is.  

He can’t believe he fell right into Ansem’s trap, can’t believe he was so easily manipulated. Is he really that desperate, really that weak? Knowing what he knows now, about Kairi, about Sora, makes shame burn right through him.

Hopefully Sora and that _stupid_ keyblade can somehow make this right, because it’s looking less and less like he’s going to have a chance to do so himself.

☆ ☆ ☆

Sora doesn’t need Riku to protect him anymore, and Kairi… Kairi is clearly safer in Sora’s hands, in Sora’s heart.

He wants to see them, though, one last time. Selfish.

The road ahead of him looks so very long. He doesn’t fully believe the voice guiding him, has learned his lesson by now about trusting disembodied voices, but he has nothing left to lose. It said two keyblades, so he assumes that Sora will be there.

Maybe he’ll get a chance to apologize.

☆ ☆ ☆

Castle Oblivion is one long nightmare he can’t seem to wake up from. Revisiting every one of his recent screw ups, facing the consequences of letting Ansem in around every corner, dealing with that _thing_ that wears his face, it’s too much to handle. By the time Mickey gets there, Riku is surprised he doesn’t just outright collapse under it all.

It’s been really lonely.

Where is Sora, anyway? He doesn’t even know how many flights of stairs he’s climbed by now. Will Sora be waiting for him at the top? And Kairi, what about her? The Kairi he saw earlier, that wasn’t his Kairi.

This castle is giving him all questions and no answers.

☆ ☆ ☆

Riku has done some terrible things, things he never expects forgiveness for, but he’s never —   
He’s never _killed someone_.

Opened the door on the island, indirectly dooming everyone who lived there? Yup. Tried to kill people, only to fail because he was too weak? Sure. Had his body taken over while Ansem did the dirty work? Check.

But this time it was all Riku.

There’s probably some poetic irony that the body on the ground looks just like him. Didn’t he say he was his own worst enemy when he first came to this castle?

He’s at least glad that it fades away, swallowed up and smothered in a dark cloud. If there had been some grotesquely familiar corpse stuck there, staring up at the sky, he’s not sure how he would have felt.

He has to keep going on, now that he knows Sora is here, too… He can’t waste time staring at the patch of grass it faded from.  

☆ ☆ ☆

“He didn’t know, did he? The replica. About the,” he pauses, tries to find the words, “about the gender thing.”

Naminé looks guilty, and he regrets asking. “When they got me to change his memories, I thought… I thought it could be one kind thing I could do for him, amongst all the hurt,” she fiddles nervously with the scalloped hem of her dress.

Naminé scares him, if he’s honest. From the little he’s learned about her, he’s pretty sure that she’s the most powerful person he’s ever met, and he’s even more sure that she doesn’t even know it.

It’s part of him, the dysphoria, in the same way that the sand and the sea and the island sun are. He’s not exactly sure who he would be without it. When she offered to lock all the dark parts of him away, he wonders if she would have included that. He’s starting to come to terms with it, like maybe it’s not all a bad thing.

This isn’t what he expected when he set out on a journey to see the world and hopefully become happier with the way he is, but he’s _alive_ , somehow, so he can’t exactly complain.

☆ ☆ ☆


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s been thinking lately that he ought to take a leaf out of Sora’s book and listen to his heart more.  
> Clearly his heart just wanted to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really excited about this chapter! Riku's nightmare is inspired by [this amazing art](https://twitter.com/_chababe/status/967987878046216192) by _chababe on Twitter.

After everything he’s seen, Riku half-expects Master Yen Sid to just wave a wand. What he wasn't expecting was for him to pull out a prescription pad like the doctor back home and send him to the pharmacy in Twilight Town, but he’s not about to complain. He’s waited years for this. He’s still a few months shy of sixteen, but it’s not like he managed to bring his ID with him the night the islands fell. Mickey tells him that it's fine. 

He does not want to know what kind of conversation Mickey had with him that lead to this, that’s too embarrassing to think about. Maybe he’ll ask about it later, but right now he just wants to get this started.

The pharmacist walks him through the process and the side effects as if it isn’t something he’s spent years looking up in the library and asking his doctor about, but he doesn’t mind. He’s got a calming presence, something Riku hasn’t found in most of the people he’s been around lately.

“This brand is a newer formula, and people find that it’s pretty fast-acting. How tall are your parents?” he isn’t that surprised to hear that different worlds have different medical innovations. He wonders what else is different. 

“My dad is pretty tall, I guess?” he replies. He was just about the same height as his mom when he left the islands, but his dad is one of the tallest people he knows.

“Don’t be too shocked if you shoot up a couple inches in the next few months, then,” the pharmacist tells him before explaining the injection process. His mom is diabetic, so needles aren’t too unfamiliar to him, but this isn't quite the same. 

It almost feels frivolous, in a way. Didn't he just technically participate in destroying and then saving the world? Now it feels like he's pretending to be a regular teenager again. He's pretty sure he's supposed to feel excited about this, but it just seems like a means to an end. It's still just puberty. 

☆ ☆ ☆

He’s fighting Sora. Or — Ansem is fighting Sora, and using Riku’s body to do so. He exhausted himself past being able to do more than weakly struggle what feels like ages ago, kicking and screaming in whatever shadowy liminal space Ansem shoved him into, but he doesn’t actually know how much time has passed.

It looks like Sora is winning, and the sliver of him that isn’t terrified and devastated and drowning in regrets is proud of him. If Sora defeats Ansem, does that mean he gets his body back? Or will he just die? Serves him right, probably, for letting him in in the first place.

When he isn’t paying close enough attention, the fight takes a turn, and something happens. He isn’t sure how, but he’s in control again, thrust back in the pilot seat and blinking in the eerie light coming from the keyhole behind him. He stumbles a little, caught off guard by the sudden weight in his arms.

Wait, what?

Sora is sagging against him, head leaning on his chest, breaths pained and shallow. Over his shoulder, Riku can see a keyblade has been shoved through him, poking out the middle of his back – the hilt of which is in Riku’s own hand. There is so much blood.

_No._

His hands shake, and he can’t find his voice. He swears he can hear Ansem laughing. He lets go of the keyblade and it disappears in a flash of sparks. Sora droops further against him without the weapon propping him up, and Riku catches him in his arms, sinking to the ground.

This isn’t what was supposed to happen, not even close.

His fingers find the exit wound on Sora’s back, raw and jagged and wet, and he tries to apply pressure. Distantly, he hears Kairi scream both of their names. There are sparks again, like when he dismissed the keyblade, but this time they’re coming from Sora’s body. One moment he’s there, clutched tight in Riku’s arms where he belongs, and in the next he’s just – he’s just _gone_ , disappearing into a burst of a thousand fragile lights.

Kairi, a few yards away, looks at him with such a mix of horror and betrayal that he feels his heart fracture even further. He wants to look away, too ashamed to meet her eyes, but Ansem takes control again and then Riku can’t do anything but go back to screaming himself hoarse in that liminal space where he’s forced to see everything and able to do nothing. Ansem is approaching her, hand raised to strike her down, and Riku can’t get any semblance of control back, can’t figure out how to make it stop, can’t save her, either —

 

He wakes up with a shout, heart racing so fast that his head is spinning. He can see bursts of light and colour behind his eyes and his fingers have gone numb. Even his own breathing is too loud to handle.

There’s a knock at the door; he must have woken Mickey up from the next room. Yen Sid should think of investing in some sound proofing.

“Riku? Are you okay? I’m coming in,” he fell asleep with the lamp on the nightstand still on, but the light coming through the half-opened doorway is bright enough to hurt his eyes.

“S-sorry. It’s fine. I _really_ don’t want to talk about it,” his hands are shaking, and he clenches his fingers into the blankets in an attempt to hide it.

“Are you sure? I think you need somebody to talk to, sounds like you’ve been bottling things up for a long time,” Riku knows Mickey means well, but it just sounds patronizing. It’s the last thing he needs right now.

“No!” he shouts, before he remembers that it’s the middle of the night and winces. He gets out of bed and stands on wobbly legs, searching desperately for an exit, “No, I’m not fucking doing this right now,” not when his heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of his chest, when his ears are ringing with his own echoing screams.

He grabs his coat off the back of the door and pulls his arms through it, not even bothering to zip it closed. With an angry swipe of his hand, he throws out a dark corridor and stomps through it, closing it before Mickey can follow. He doesn’t care where it spits him out; he just needs a moment alone.

Their old crooked paopu tree on the play island is the last thing he was expecting to see. He’s been thinking lately that he ought to take a leaf out of Sora’s book and listen to his heart more. Clearly his heart just wanted to go home.

It’s a clear night, thankfully, nothing like the storm that swirled around them the last time he stood here. That would have probably just made his panic attack even worse.

His outburst makes him feel foolish, and he knows he needs to go apologize. Mickey has been nothing but incredibly kind and patient with him, certainly more than he’s earned. He goes and sits at his usual spot, finding that he doesn’t even really have to hoist himself up anymore. He’s not exactly sure how tall he is now, but he knows he’s grown a few inches very quickly like he was warned.

He buries his face in his hands and starts to cry, for the first time in a long, long time. It’s been so long that he barely recognizes the sound of his own broken-hearted sobs.

What if he can’t do this, after all? What if he’s been stained forever by all this darkness? What if Sora never wakes up? What if Sora wakes up and _hates him?_ He’s given him more than enough reasons to, by this point.

Riku misses his friends.

He misses Kairi, across the water. So close and so, so far. He wants nothing more in that moment that to be wrapped up in her arms and have her tell him that everything is going to be okay. She’d been so scared the last time he saw her, and it had taken everything in him to hold Ansem back long enough. He can’t go see her — he knows he doesn’t deserve to.

He misses Sora, stuck in that stupid pod while he dreams of all his memories weaving back together. Sometimes things feel a bit fuzzy, when he’s trying to think of something that Naminé hasn’t quite fixed yet, but he knows he remembers Sora better than everyone else who knows him. She kicked him out of the pod room last week for ‘moping too much,’ said it was ruining her concentration.

The nightmare is still sparking on the edge of his mind. So much of Sora’s blood, right there on his hands. He feels like he’s going to be sick. He knows it’s just another symptom of the hold Ansem still has on him, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling real.  

☆ ☆ ☆

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *david gallagher voice* he's an angsty guy, he's just an angsty guy. 
> 
> (Look, I know T doesn't work that way, but they really expect us to just believe that Riku's growth spurt happened somewhere between the end of Chain of Memories and when he first meets Xion circa day 150? This series has all sorts of crazy magic and tech, I'm just using it to my advantage. Also making Yen Sid a doctor made me laugh, okay?)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They tell Kairi that her best friend has been lost at sea, but she knows there’s more to it than that, in more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a month, I'm SORRY, writing this chapter was like pulling fucking _teeth._ The scene between Riku and Xion was intended to be a lot longer and really dig more into fact that Xion is trans and have them talk about a lot of stuff, but it just wasn't happening. I am clearly not meant to be the person who writes that, and I gladly hand it off to anyone who wants to tackle it. 
> 
> Now, if you are only following this story, be advised that the series is now... a lot bigger. I added three more fics since I last updated this because my life is spiralling out of control and I have no discipline. If you are only here for things that are rated T, please heed the warnings on them. This fic will maintain this rating but the series as a whole has, uh, a lot of smut. Absolutely none of it takes place when they're underage, but I know sometimes people still aren't comfortable and I respect that.

☆ ☆ ☆

The growth spurt is, well, calling it a challenge is putting it lightly. Riku’s centre of gravity is very quickly about half a foot higher than where he’s used to it being, and he trips on _everything._

Honestly, there’s no need to go through the woods that separate the mansion from the town proper. They can just open a corridor. Then they could avoid all the rocks and gnarled roots and downed branches that threaten to make him eat dirt every couple of yards. Mickey insists on not using them unless they’re necessary, though, so he grits his teeth and suffers through the brief walk. Years spent growing up in his mom’s dance studio have been undone by just a few months of hormones. It’s like he’s a baby deer or something, but even more awkward.

He stumbles, _again_ , and spits out a nasty little curse when his knee lands on a particularly sharp rock.

“ _Really_ , Riku, that language isn’t very becoming from such a nice young man.” Mickey admonishes, turning around to face him with his hands on his hips. Riku isn’t sure if it’s possible for him to sound angry, but it’s a close thing.

His face heats up with embarrassment. Mickey has told him that he doesn’t have any children, but he’s managed to get the disappointed father-figure act down pretty quick. He mumbles an apology and gets back to his feet. They have to get to the mansion soon so that he can go and hide, maybe go complain to Naminé and hope she doesn’t just laugh at him.

He still finds himself tripping, but before he knows it, his vocabulary is actually pretty clean – a far cry from a boy who grew up in a town of sailors. It’s just harder to swear when it feels like it’s letting down the only person who seems to be firmly on his side right now.

☆ ☆ ☆

It was bad enough that they made a replica of _him_.

He’s… he’s still not entirely sure what _she’s_ supposed to be. This girl who looks like Kairi, but as if Naminé only had charcoals to draw her with, who carries some hollow knock-off of Sora’s keyblade.

It feels like another one of the Organization’s twisted jokes, but he can’t take that out on her. She didn’t ask for this. And besides, she’s defected, working with him now instead of against him.

“I’m like you, aren’t I?” Xion asks him one day, “I have memories with you in them. I know things.”

Riku doesn’t get what she means, at first, and wonders if she’s talking about Sora’s memories of Castle Oblivion, if she’s gotten him confused with the replica. He freezes when he remembers that she was originally intended to be a replica of _Roxas_.

“It’s not quite the same,” he says, but doesn't elaborate. He doesn’t understand exactly how replicas work, but he knows there is something specific about Xion makes everyone see her a little differently. If there is an actual person there underneath all the borrowed memories that piece together her patchwork self, he doesn’t know what that person would be like.

He hears her pluck at the zipper of her coat, a self-conscious tic he recognizes as being lifted from Kairi. “Back at the castle I would sometimes overhear them talking about me. Things like being surprised that I was a girl, or asking why…” she trails off, and he waves a hand as a signal for her to keep talking, “asking why I looked so much like a boy. And Saïx only ever called me _it._ ”

He really hopes she doesn’t ask to go back. If she does ask him, he’ll let her go, because she has to make this choice on her own, but he _really_ doesn’t want her to go back there. It makes his stomach flip just thinking about it.

He can’t actually allow himself to get attached to this girl who is nothing but a shadow of his two most precious people. He knows what has to happen to her. It isn’t fair or right or good, but he is willing to do _anything_ to wake Sora up.

☆ ☆ ☆

They tell Kairi that her best friend has been lost at sea, but she knows there’s more to it than that, in more ways than one. She knows she had _two_ best friends, though it gets harder and harder for her to picture the other one every day, and she knows they weren’t lost at sea.

It was always the three of them; –––– and Riku and Kairi, a three-for-one package deal. One of them has been erased, just echoes of him left in the furthest corners of her memory. Something happened to him and she somehow has managed to forget all of it.

What she hasn’t managed to forget, though, is feeling afraid. Afraid of a lot of different things, like their friendship changing, like an unstoppable storm coming to the island, like the way Riku had been acting so different.

Afraid of being left behind.

And, in the end, everything she was afraid of happening had come true — things had changed, irreversibly, between them all, the storm had taken from her everything she held dear, Riku wasn’t _Riku_ anymore, and she had been left alone at ground zero, helpless, with empty hands that couldn’t hold on tight enough and tired legs that couldn’t jump far enough and a vicious ache in her chest with a broken heart that couldn’t bear losing them both.

The more time passes, the more the details she can’t recall lead her to fits of frustration, the more the fear fades into something that is starting to sometimes taste a little more like anger. She sounds like every shred of the vulnerable teenaged girl she is, but it isn’t _fair_.

She knows that she was told she would only be in the way. Even though she can’t remember the voice that said it, she still remembers the harsh sting it had left with her. She’s mad at the forgotten boy for telling her to stay behind when maybe, just _maybe,_ she could have done something to help. Now she’ll never know.

Being angry doesn’t make her miss them any less, though, so Kairi lets it run its course and allows the tide to wash it all away. It just takes one lonely night spent out on the beach as far from any houses as she can get without going to the play island — because she can’t go back, not without them — screaming and sobbing and kicking uselessly at the sand like maybe if she makes enough of a fuss they’ll hear her and come back to comfort her.

By dawn, she’s worn herself down to just the grief and loneliness and slowly drags herself home. She pauses outside the familiar two-storey house with white shutters and a healthy garden and listens to the sounds of two women getting started on their day. She wonders how they explain it to themselves — the bedroom he must have left behind full of teenaged-boy-things, the family photographs with ill-fitting negative space, the way they surely must miss being called _mom_ and _mama._ She remembers that his eyes were the same colour as the forget-me-nots below the window and can’t find it within herself to see any humour in the irony.

She knows she didn’t make him up because she can feel him, still, if she focuses and closes her eyes and reaches out, plucking like a spider at the two red strings that stretch out far past the horizon, past the boundaries of their tiny seaside world. One for Riku and one for ––––, unbreakable connections that at least keep her believing that they’re alive. Even when everyone else seems to be so sure that there was only ever one boy at her side and that he was washed away with the storm, she knows in her heart the truth.

One night, months later, the thread connecting her to Riku that she thought could never break snaps like an overstretched elastic band. And a few days later, everyone finally remembers _Sora._

Kairi can’t stay here, not now that she remembers everything, not now that she knows something has gone wrong, not now that she feels something akin to that same itch that left Riku feeling like a caged animal.

_One day, when you’re in trouble, the light within you will lead you to the light of another. Someone to keep you safe._ It comes to her unprompted, a memory she can’t quite catch in her grasp. The words are not reassuring. 

It’s all pointless to her if she isn’t able to keep them safe in return.

☆ ☆ ☆

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Kairi POV scene turned into what you see because I'm am bitter as hell that she isn't in the DLC trailer at all. Fight me, Nomura. 
> 
> The next chapter is actually two thirds finished already and includes what is (so far) my favourite scene I've written, so there shouldn't be too long of a wait for that one, promise.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _‘Be careful what you wish for’_ has never felt like a more appropriate warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, told you guys that this one wouldn't take as long to get out. The third segment in this chapter was actually drafted before I even started publishing this and I've been working on the second for a few weeks so there wasn't much more to do. 
> 
> I used a random number generator to decide how angsty to make the first part because I was struggling with it and wound up with a pretty low number, so just know that I could have made this hurt more. I think the majority of the serious angst for this series is out of the way now, actually? This chapter basically concludes Riku's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.

☆ ☆ ☆

Besides the expected trauma of suddenly being in an unfamiliar body, one that is not his, one that reminds him of no longer having any control, is the additional trauma of grappling with the feeling that he does not  _like_  this body at all, for all the different parts should make him happy. Isn’t this more like a body he wanted to have?  _‘Be careful what you wish for’_ has never felt like a more appropriate warning.

He’s gotten good at avoiding reflective surfaces.

He shadows Sora, feeling like he sticks out like a sore thumb and grateful that his best friend and his companions aren’t the sharpest blocks in the gummi garage.

Sora asks about him in every world he visits, desperate for any scrap of information that could reassure him that Riku is safe. Being this close and unable to reach out for him cuts even deeper than he anticipated, and he starts to get increasingly reckless, lingering just out of sight, practically taunting himself with the scant distance.

It’s almost,  _almost_ enough to make him forget, if only for a moment. The moments that follow hurt even more, but he finds himself chasing the feeling regardless.

Riku starts to have a reoccurring dream of standing on a stained-glass platform in the dark, the only light radiating from the surface below him. Every step he takes away from the centre splinters the glass further, making it creak like breaking bones and burning driftwood. There are round portraits of Sora and Kairi at his feet and he  _feels_  the spiderwebs of cracks spread. He jolts and backs up, scared to find out what would happen if their images shattered. His hands — his own hands, he notices — are shaking.

He makes his way to the edge, his steps as light as he can possibly make them. The platform is ringed by a repeating symbol he doesn’t recognize, black iron over sunset peach glass. It’s not quite the Heartless or Nobody symbols, but similar in design. When he reaches the edge, he stops and looks down into the abyss. This dream is  _weird_ , foreboding in a way he doesn’t have the words for, but he’ll take it over the nightmares.

He gets the sense, in the strange way that dreams often are, that he’s here too early.

☆ ☆ ☆

Riku doesn’t know why he was so confident that she wouldn’t notice it was him. This is Kairi, of course she would notice. Naminé confirming it certainly doesn’t help his case, either. His chance to slip away through the corridor to follow after Saïx falls through as she cries out his name and crashes into him from behind, fingers clutched tight in the leather of his coat.

“Stop! Don’t go,” Kairi begs, clinging like she expects him to disappear, and he’s never been able to deny her anything, so he stays. He lets her tug and pull and turn him around to face her, bracing himself as she pushes his hood down. He hears her gasp, but she has no words at first.

“What happened?” she finally asks, voice breaking. Where does he even  _start?_

He slips back to his own voice, since there isn’t anything to bother hiding from her, “Too much to explain here. Are you hurt?” he checks her over quickly for any injuries, unsure of how far Saïx had gone before he found them.

“I’m fine, it doesn’t matter, he was just trying to scare me,” she says, brushing it aside now that it’s over. “It’s been so long, Riku, I didn’t know if you were...” she trails off as she starts to cry, shoulders folding in, first hiding her face behind her hands and then crumpling forward to cry against his chest when it doesn’t let up. He can tell she’s had her own growth spurt, but the top of her head doesn’t even reach his collarbones.

He still remembers what it was like to first see her again after the last time they were separated, though now he supposes she wasn’t  _really_  there, so it doesn’t actually count to anyone but him. 

Back then, she had been completely hollowed out. Her breathing was so faint and shallow that the sight of her nearly-still chest had made his blood run cold. When he had grabbed her hand and begged her to wake up, her skin was clammy and cool to the touch. Her eyes had opened, but they were blank and empty, missing all the things that had made her Kairi. She’s so full of life now, bursting with it, flushed and shaking and, despite everything,  _here._

“I’m so sorry. This is all my fault — if I hadn’t opened the door on the island, we would all still be safe at home,” he apologizes quietly, low enough that only she can hear. He doesn’t know where to put his hands anymore, so they stay at his sides, fists clenched.

Kairi shakes her head, “No, this is bigger than any of us. The only thing you need to apologize for is not letting me know you were okay.” There’s an angry edge to her voice that shines even through the tears.

“Do I look okay to you?” the words are bitter in his mouth, but he just sounds tired, “I didn’t think you’d want to see me like... like this,” he gestures vaguely and moves to turn away from her, ashamed, but she stops him, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck and pulling him down, ragged nails biting into skin, holding him in place, pressing their foreheads together. She’s trembling, stretched up on the very tips of her toes to reach him.

“ _Idiot_ ,” she breathes, “I missed both of you so much. How could you ever think I wouldn’t want to see you?”

The little knot of guilt in his chest tightens. He’s had time to think of plenty of reasons that she wouldn’t want to see him.

“I didn’t know if you were  _dead,_ or _worse._  I mean, somehow I knew — I  _knew_  that you weren’t gone... I don’t know how to explain it, but there wasn’t any real proof!” she continues, waving both hands for emphasis as she rocks back down on her feet before she loses her balance.

“You were safe there, though. There was no need to drag you into this,” he says, placing a hand on her shoulder to steady her.

“Safe? Fine. But it was awful, Riku. The islands never felt like a prison to me until I was there  _without you_ ,” she drags her hands over her face to dry the tears before continuing. “Knowing you were both out there, that you needed help? Promise me that I won’t get left behind again.”

“Kairi, it’s too dangerous, what if —“

“Promise me, Riku,” she interrupts, pushing his hand off her shoulder and wrapping her arms around his middle again, muffling her cries into his chest.

He lets her cry it out for a few more minutes, knowing that Naminé is near, giving them space and keeping watch. He can only imagine what Kairi has been bottling up while she’s been trapped here.

“You won’t get left behind again. We’ll all keep each other safe from now on, together,” he gently pushes her away so that he can look her in the eyes, but they stay squeezed shut, “I promise.” He brushes some stray tears away from her cheek with his thumb, but it just makes a few more fall. Her face feels so small in his hand.

A small, cryptic kind of smile blooms across her face. “I can see you,” she whispers like she’s sharing a secret, nuzzling into his palm.

“What do you mean?” he says. Her eyes are still closed.

Kairi reaches up for the hand that’s still cupping her face and weaves their fingers together, “I can see  _you,_ when I close my eyes. The way I’m supposed to see you.” And here he was starting to worry that she was just avoiding having to look at him.

“Is that a Princess of Heart-thing?” he asks. As far as he’s aware, no one has been able to see him as himself since he fought Roxas.

“Mm, I don’t think so. I think it’s an us-thing. I bet Sora will be able to see you, too,” she squeezes his hand and opens her eyes. Her expression is steely with determination, unbending and stubborn.

“Let’s go find him.”

☆ ☆ ☆

Xemnas is waiting for them just a few rooms away, but after clearing a small area of shadows they all take a moment to regroup and prepare. Riku watches Donald and Goofy pull countless ethers and hi-potions out of their pockets to take stock. Kairi is on the other side of the room with Mickey and a bouncing speck he can barely make out that must be Jiminy, and is asking them something away from everyone else’s ears. He’ll find out what that’s about later, but he has a pretty good guess that she’s just trying to catch up on what’s happened.

He looks around to see where Sora went, but gets caught in a tight hug as he turns. Sora gives him no chance of escaping, both arms wrapped tight around him, nearly knocking the two of them off balance. Like Kairi, he has to stand on his toes and Riku has to try very hard not to laugh.

“I missed you being you-shaped,” Sora says, words muffled into the side of his neck.

“I literally grew at least seven inches since you last saw me, I don’t know what me-shaped is anymore,” Riku jokes, but this is the first time Sora’s seen him since he started hormones so there is some truth to it. His hands awkwardly hover above Sora’s shoulders, unable to return the hug. He thought he would be ready for this, the all-encompassing tornado that is physical affection from Sora, but he’s hesitating and he doesn’t know why. Hadn’t he been dreaming about this very moment?

“You know what I mean. Missed  _you_. When did that happen, anyway? You weren’t stuck like that this whole time, were you?” Sora tightens his arms around him with each question, and if Riku hadn’t grown up with embraces like this he would be worried that it was Roxas trying to come out and throttle him.

“Um. When did you wake up, exactly?” Truth be told, he’s not entirely sure himself how long it’s been. 

Sora is quiet for a long moment, one of his hands trailing up and down Riku’s spine as he thinks about what he just said. “There’s a longer story there and I think I’m not going to like it one bit, am I?” He can’t see Sora’s face, but he can feel his mouth twist into a pout where his lips are pressed to his neck and it makes him shiver. 

“Probably not. But I’d do it again,” the  _for you_  remains unspoken, but Riku is pretty sure that Sora hears it anyway judging by the way his hands fist the fabric of his vest and the quiet, teary laugh he breaths against his skin. He folds his arms around the middle of Sora’s back, finally holding him close. It’s the first time he’s held him in so long. Too long.

☆ ☆ ☆

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't read the KH2 manga, I suggest seriously reevaluating your life choices. Instead of Riku and Kairi's reunion being like a fifteen second cutscene and an implied off-screen conversation, Shiro Amano actually dedicates like two whole chapters to letting them reconnect. It was absolutely everything I could asked for and it solidly ruined my life. My take on it uses a little bit of both, but it's even longer because, boy... am I ever a slut for communication. 
> 
> Also, if Sora's Station of Awakening can have Donald and Goofy on it before he even meets them, then Riku's can have the Dream Eater symbol already. Fight me.


End file.
